Why?
by how does she do it
Summary: It all came down to one question. Well, two actually. 1. Why would she care? and 2.....what in the Wonderful World was Wrong with that girl!
1. Chapter 1

I saw the mini-series and fell in love with this! Hatter and Alice forever, baby!

I own nothing, its all Syfy's. Dammit

Why?

She came back for him.

No one had ever done that before.

She had a clear shot to escape. To get away from the crazy Dodo with a gun. And yet she hesitated. He was running down the hall to catch the mad bastard and saw her hand pause as she looked out the bus's doors. Her scared green eyes met his and her hand stopped. It must be from confusion. The girl was in a new world, with alien technology, of course is was confusion, the silly Oyster didn't know how the bus worked.

It couldn't be because she was worried about him. No one worried about the Mad Hatter. No one cared enough to worry. He liked it that way, really. No attachments meant less leverage that anyone could use against him. He never offered to care beyond the Resistance's cause. He never needed to. So why was he sticking his neck out for this girl, again?

He wondered if Dormie had been slipping some of that bloody Tea in his drink.

He knocked Dodo down, tried to drag him back from chasing her. He told her what button to push. Told her to get away and run as fast as she could. She looked panicked and afraid, and yet he saw her hand hesitate again.

Why?

He pulled Dodo up, punching out the pillar as the bastard had the nerve to dodge his blow. He spat out how lucky the man was, just as Dodo knocked him down. Hatter refused to cry out even as Dodo viciously punched where the bullet had hit his shoulder, over and over again. The crazed man even had the nerve to knock off his hat!

And then Dodo went flying. From a brutal kick in the face by an ankle boot that was attached to a fabulously long leg. Hatter scrabled to catch his hat, clenching it tight and nearly recoiling from the smaller hands that took his shoulders. It was that Oyster again, no, Alice--Alice was pulling him up from the floor so he could find his feet. Her voice was still panicked as she called for him to run, but it also sounded....

Worried. Why?

She'd just met him. She didn't know the first thing about him! Well, besides his name, and that he was in the Resistance, and now a wanted man on both sides of the war. Either way, why? Why would she care about someone she didn't really know?

She pulled him into the bus, putting him down to rest as she nearly punched the blue button that started the bus. The girl, her brown hair falling around them as she knelt down beside him, was reaching for his jacket. Her face, (a beautiful face, he noted in some awe), was twisted in Concern. Worry. Borderline Panic.

Why?

She asked where it hurt. She asked what could she do to help. It hit him suddenly as he caught his breath, as her cool hands touched his chest to try and soothe his 'wound'. She really was worried. She was going to pieces, even though the danger was past, because she thought he was injured.

She cared.

And something in him, something he didn't know existed, or maybe thought had died a long time ago, began to stir. Even as her eyes began to snap with anger at how he'd played her, it stirred. It made his heart pound harder, even though the physical danger was past. It made his eyes focus on her more clearly, even though his vision was fine. It made him pay attention to everything about her.

He was starting to care. It terrified him. Why? As he looked into her green eyes where no deception lay, where only concern, care, and even anger lay, he couldnt' remember why anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

Hatter yelled at me to do another, and I couldn't resist. (Actually, I can't think of any woman that could resist that man...)

Chapter 2

_Why the hell wasn't she running?!_

They were in the forest, trying to shake of the pursuit of a deck of flying Aces, Scarabs, and Suits, led by what he would have sworn was the ghost of Mad March with a rabbit cookie jar on his head. (It should have clashed horribly with that ugly black dress suit, but somehow, March made it work. If nothing else, the man had Style.) He had to do something to get the Suits to leave the two of them alone, long enough to escape. He knew that if he could lead a Jabberwock to the Cards, it could easily distract them long enough for he and Alice to get enough of a head start to be reasonably safe. For a while.

Maybe for a day or two.

Either way, it would help!

And yet she still stood there, holding his arm. She was shaking, she was scared, and no matter what he told her, she Wouldn't. Let. Go. of _His. Bloody. Arm! _

It was like she was objecting to his being the bait for the Jabberwock. Like she thought it was a stupid idea to make a giant, unknown, but certainly carnivorous monster chase after you all for the sake of chasing off some other, less carnivorous, but certainly just as dangerous, pursuers.

...well, egads, when you put it that way, it did sound more mad than anything he usually dealt in, didn't it? And indeed, quite stupid.

Why was he doing this again? Getting in such appalling amounts of unasked-for trouble, how had this happened? He kept forgetting.

And then he looked in her frightened green eyes and he remembered. Her face, her stance, all of it screamed in terror. But there was not one ounce of self-preservation in those expressive eyes, not one single tiny bit of it in all her lovely, trembling body. Just Worry, Concern, Borderline Panic. It suddenly hit him like a dose of his own sledgehammer fist. She looked like that because she didn't want him to be the bait; because she didn't want him to be hurt.

Because she cared.

That forgotten something rose up again, this time in his chest, frighteningly close to his heart. It wrapped tight bands around that bothersome organ, a faint squeeze pinching him just hard enough to make him take notice.

Why? Why did she care about him so much?

And really, what was the matter with the girl?! Was imminent death and dismemberment or/and capture by horrible enemies not enough to get her moving?! He was beginning to wonder just how common such an occurrence was in her world that it provoked such a blase response here in Wonderland.

Suddenly, they heard the beast's roar, much closer than anyone was comfortable with and---There, praise the first Teapot! She was running, they were running, this might work out---

....where the hell was she going? Why was she running _the other way?!_

And they **dared** call _him _Mad, when clearly _she _was crazier than all of Wonderland put together! "Not that way!! Alice!!"


End file.
